Wednesday, July 8, 2015

TECHNICAL GLITCHES HAMPER WSJ, NYSE AND UNITED AIR. ARE WE UNDER CYBER ATTACK?

All United Flights have been grounded, the NYSE shut down for a while and the WSJ is still off line after a series of "technical glitches." Now while it is entirely possible that all of these are in no way connected, as many are already saying who know about the NYSE problem, there is also the strong possibility that they may not be telling us the whole truth either.
As of 1:30 EST, the Dow is down around 180 points, which is a miracle in and of itself because the Chinese Stock Market was also halted today because their economy appears to be in freefall. This is hardly surprising as their housing bubble has been bursting at the seams for months and now they may be looking at a 1929 moment, with all of their actions unlikely to stop their economy from imploding. This, combined with Greek, Ukrainian, and Puerto Rican debt, may be the canary in the coal mine that the world economy may be about to detonate big time.

And while the pundits may all be denying a cyber attack, tech stocks dealing with cyber security have all skyrocketed upward once the market re-opened. This suggests that either they are just speculating like we all are or they KNOW that something bad is happening and are taking steps to try to prevent this from happening to their company.

Greece is still no closer to a deal than yesterday and have issued a latch ditch attempt to get money for their failing banks. In exchange for some debt relief, they will impose some austerity measures such as pension reform and tax increases. It is unknown at this time if the IMF/EU will accept these proposals, or if the Greek people will allow any new austerity measures to continue, especially considering they have been dismal failures. Time will tell.
Many within Europe fear that if a deal isn't struck by this weekend, Greece will fall into chaos as goods and services come to a grinding halt. When there is no more food, people will become savages to get what they cannot live without. Sunday's meeting with EU heads is the be all end all, and with Germany seemingly reluctant to offer Greece anything else, things could get ugly. It is ironic that the one country whose debt was forgiven by the world after WW2 is the same country demanding their pound of flesh. And who says the Germans don't have a sense of humor? Or that's right everyone.

China has been throwing everything and the kitchen sink at their disastrous economic problems. The government told state companies and corporate executives to buy shares, much like the plunge protection team does here and in Europe, which will not fix the problem long term. They have also raised the amount of equity insurance companies can hold and promised more credit for finance trading. Hundreds of companies have seen their trading halted on the Hang Seng and Shanghai exchanges as their net value have fell 30% since mid-June. Even with all this, their stock dropped around another 6% yesterday on both exchanges, suggesting what they are doing is not working. Small investors have said they will no longer buy stock as they have lost a fortune in value. Sounds like here after 2008 when only the rich kept stock while the rest of us cashed out for what little money we had left.
Anyone with stock should be watching closely this week as there is always a chance that out stock market could tumble down the abyss with everyone else's. And if a cyber attack is actually happening, will we be told the truth or lied to like always? Stay tuned dear readers for more on this evolving story. If more news breaks about this I will update later.